"This may be expanded in the future to include carrying passengers, or casualty evacuation from hotspots too dangerous for a manned helicopter. However, even though they may be safer than manned helicopters, there is still a degree of caution about letting unmanned systems transport humans."

If I'm being shot at, I think I'll take my chances catching a ride with Skynet, thank you very much.

I don't want drones doing delivery, I want people to do the work, who get the benefit of having a job and getting paid. I don't people to be replaced by machines....

At least as long as society insist that we operate by way of production > wages > consumption > production. automation chokes the wages part, resulting in a drop in consumption, that then leads to a downwards spiral in production.

I don't want drones doing delivery, I want people to do the work, who get the benefit of having a job and getting paid. I don't people to be replaced by machines....

Like all the stable hands who were put out of a job when we stopped using horses.

Yes and no. The jobs automated right now are the "untrained" variant, or even the entrance jobs to larger organization. I recently read about a system that could do the job of multiple paralegals. feed it all the paperwork on a case, hammer in some search terms, and it would spit out relevant documents. Even ones not holding the exact word or phrase, but ones with relevant contexts.

This is not "grab wrench, turn nut" kind of jobs. This is jobs that require understanding of the laws involved, and so require some degree of training beforehand.

And there is already becoming quite a glut of college degrees in the world...

I don't want drones doing delivery, I want people to do the work, who get the benefit of having a job and getting paid. I don't people to be replaced by machines....

The jobs are going, and it's best all of us get used to it. I'm a helicopter pilot, so it's not like this isn't affecting me, as the article attests. A few years back I went back to school for a new degree, and time will tell whether it was the right decision or not, but the fact remains at this point it's evolve or die. There are fewer and fewer jobs for more and more people, and I've seen people in industries related to mine who were unable to keep up fast enough lose their jobs and families because of it.

You can't waste your time being wistful for days gone by, because if you do, ten people who didn't are going to take the chance to lap you and you'll be out in the cold.

Money is what we use to allocate scarce resources. Of course the system breaks when you ask how to use money to allocate something that's not scarce. Just like RIAA trying to allocate the infinite copies of music.

The jobs automated right now are the "untrained" variant, or even the entrance jobs to larger organization. I recently read about a system that could do the job of multiple paralegals. feed it all the paperwork on a case, hammer in some search terms, and it would spit out relevant documents. Even ones not holding the exact word or phrase, but ones with relevant contexts.

On the other hand if legal services get cheaper that makes it harder for rich people and corporations to steamroll everyone in court. Which sounds great!

I'd like to note that for at least a hundred and fifty years people have lived with the fear that all the jobs will be automated away, but this hasn't happened yet. If it does happen this time, that means everyone's needs can be met without full 40-hour a week employment. Which sounds great!

For the longest time, the dream of robotics was the elimination of human labor. The problem is currently that leisure is poorly distributed, and the people who have been allotted leisure (in the form of unemployment) are unable to fully enjoy it. So I believe the goal of labor-conscious people right now should not be to hold back technological progress, but embrace it by fighting for a shorter work week and more vacation days.

After all what was the longest lasting achievement of the early 20th century unions? The 40 hour work week. Maybe it's time for 35 or 32.

Problem is that in various parts of the world, people are working double jobs and still barely covering basic needs.

We pretty much have to abolish the capitalist bedrock if we want to utilize this automation to the benefit of most, as there is no way the owners of production will take a profit cut simply to allow more people leisure time.

The jobs automated right now are the "untrained" variant, or even the entrance jobs to larger organization. I recently read about a system that could do the job of multiple paralegals. feed it all the paperwork on a case, hammer in some search terms, and it would spit out relevant documents. Even ones not holding the exact word or phrase, but ones with relevant contexts.

On the other hand if legal services get cheaper that makes it harder for rich people and corporations to steamroll everyone in court. Which sounds great!

I'd like to note that for at least a hundred and fifty years people have lived with the fear that all the jobs will be automated away, but this hasn't happened yet. If it does happen this time, that means everyone's needs can be met without full 40-hour a week employment. Which sounds great!

For the longest time, the dream of robotics was the elimination of human labor. The problem is currently that leisure is poorly distributed, and the people who have been allotted leisure (in the form of unemployment) are unable to fully enjoy it. So I believe the goal of labor-conscious people right now should not be to hold back technological progress, but embrace it by fighting for a shorter work week and more vacation days.

After all what was the longest lasting achievement of the early 20th century unions? The 40 hour work week. Maybe it's time for 35 or 32.

I've agreed with this view for a long time. I do well flying, and I'd happily make a fair bit less if my I could have someone on the job doing half the work. That employs two people instead of just me, we're both making more than enough money and have much more time to ourselves, and the job gets done.

Instead, what happens is that I get asked to take on more and more time, and stay in for weeks longer than scheduled at increased rates because I don't want to set the precedent of doing it for free. So in the end I'm working much more than I want to, making what is to me stupid amounts of money (though far less than any given banker I'm sure), and getting basically no time off. I can say no to a job, but I can't do it too much because then I don't get called at all. There are dozens of people looking to fill my shoes, and giving one of them a chance shouldn't mean putting me out of a job. It should be entirely possible to hire a few extra guys and split the work evenly I'm sure most of us would be much happier.

The jobs automated right now are the "untrained" variant, or even the entrance jobs to larger organization. I recently read about a system that could do the job of multiple paralegals. feed it all the paperwork on a case, hammer in some search terms, and it would spit out relevant documents. Even ones not holding the exact word or phrase, but ones with relevant contexts.

On the other hand if legal services get cheaper that makes it harder for rich people and corporations to steamroll everyone in court. Which sounds great!

I'd like to note that for at least a hundred and fifty years people have lived with the fear that all the jobs will be automated away, but this hasn't happened yet. If it does happen this time, that means everyone's needs can be met without full 40-hour a week employment. Which sounds great!

For the longest time, the dream of robotics was the elimination of human labor. The problem is currently that leisure is poorly distributed, and the people who have been allotted leisure (in the form of unemployment) are unable to fully enjoy it. So I believe the goal of labor-conscious people right now should not be to hold back technological progress, but embrace it by fighting for a shorter work week and more vacation days.

After all what was the longest lasting achievement of the early 20th century unions? The 40 hour work week. Maybe it's time for 35 or 32.

My company does 30-35 hour workweeks. Aside from the advantages in employee retention, I feel we get more productivity out of every hour worked (by programmers, mostly). If they do 2-3 concentrated hours before lunch, and 3 after lunch, I'm very happy. To this end, everyone should have a comfortable, independent office with a closing door and a window.

To address your general point about automation, I think that we need to address this politically very soon. We need a Universal Basic Income, or else we will have deep social problems as more and more people become irrelevant to the economy. Not everyone is capable of retraining to do a more sophisticated job, and the complexity handled by robotics and informatics is constantly increasing, thereby allowing capital to replace more and more labour.

I don't want drones doing delivery, I want people to do the work, who get the benefit of having a job and getting paid. I don't people to be replaced by machines....

I think people get confused why most people work and how humanity has evolved to where we are now.

Consider if machines could do everything and nobody had to work but people could do what they wanted. Don't get bogged down in the minutae or nitpick the details. Just think about a society where we could collectively meet all our goals without requiring most people to work to support the society or even worse trying to create jobs for the sole purpose of creating incomes.

I don't want drones doing delivery, I want people to do the work, who get the benefit of having a job and getting paid. I don't people to be replaced by machines....

I think people get confused why most people work and how humanity has evolved to where we are now.

Consider if machines could do everything and nobody had to work but people could do what they wanted. Don't get bogged down in the minutae or nitpick the details. Just think about a society where we could collectively meet all our goals without requiring most people to work to support the society or even worse trying to create jobs for the sole purpose of creating incomes.

The thought experiment is valid and interesting, but history has proven that it probably won't happen on its own through market-driven processes. We need to decide that this is the society we want, and legislate appropriately.

The scenario you talk about was actually very well studied in the 80s (ish), when everyone saw that productivity was rising amazingly, because of technology. Back then, they thought that this meant that people would work fewer hours in order to achieve the same standard of living, and thus the field of Recreology was born, because we had to figure out what to do with all of this leisure time and also had to train graduates to apply this knowledge within society. How do you make people feel useful and fulfilled when they don't work? The question is important.

Anyway, it didn't end up happening that way. We kept working just as much while our productivity increased, and the riches ended up elsewhere; massively increasing wealth generally, concentrating at the top, and buying us more comfort and (amazing) gadgets.

Now, the situation isn't the same, as instead of humans solely becoming more productive, we're facing humans becoming obsolete, starting at the bottom of the economy and moving up.

The jobs automated right now are the "untrained" variant, or even the entrance jobs to larger organization. I recently read about a system that could do the job of multiple paralegals. feed it all the paperwork on a case, hammer in some search terms, and it would spit out relevant documents. Even ones not holding the exact word or phrase, but ones with relevant contexts.

On the other hand if legal services get cheaper that makes it harder for rich people and corporations to steamroll everyone in court. Which sounds great!

I'd like to note that for at least a hundred and fifty years people have lived with the fear that all the jobs will be automated away, but this hasn't happened yet. If it does happen this time, that means everyone's needs can be met without full 40-hour a week employment. Which sounds great!

For the longest time, the dream of robotics was the elimination of human labor. The problem is currently that leisure is poorly distributed, and the people who have been allotted leisure (in the form of unemployment) are unable to fully enjoy it. So I believe the goal of labor-conscious people right now should not be to hold back technological progress, but embrace it by fighting for a shorter work week and more vacation days.

After all what was the longest lasting achievement of the early 20th century unions? The 40 hour work week. Maybe it's time for 35 or 32.

My company does 30-35 hour workweeks. Aside from the advantages in employee retention, I feel we get more productivity out of every hour worked (by programmers, mostly). If they do 2-3 concentrated hours before lunch, and 3 after lunch, I'm very happy. To this end, everyone should have a comfortable, independent office with a closing door and a window.

To address your general point about automation, I think that we need to address this politically very soon. We need a Universal Basic Income, or else we will have deep social problems as more and more people become irrelevant to the economy. Not everyone is capable of retraining to do a more sophisticated job, and the complexity handled by robotics and informatics is constantly increasing, thereby allowing capital to replace more and more labour.

Your point about retraining is very critical; not everyone has the ability to handle a technical field or be retrained for a job outside of a narrow range.. If they do not an income; preferably from a job for self worth reasons, they have been effectively abandoned by society and told they are worthless and do not deserve to live. This is a very serious moral and ethical issue for societies to answer and answer in a moral and ethical manner. I do not have an answer other than to agree it must be discussed and addressed soon.

I don't want drones doing delivery, I want people to do the work, who get the benefit of having a job and getting paid. I don't people to be replaced by machines....

Very good point: socio- economical consequences of the technological progress. The future looks gloomy already because of the way the American system developed: big money and political power are buckled and virtually have become one thing. This is why the possibilities offered by new technologies will probably benefit mainly the "elite"... It's development and utilization is becoming more and more out of reach for an average Joe. How much money do you need to become the president? How many "deals" and "friends" do you have to have? Advanced technology in this "ecosystem" may become just another step on the way to fully established, exclusive "rulling class". Well ,I hope not but definitely there's no harm in exploring the black scenario... Thanks pall, you made me think!

Problem is that in various parts of the world, people are working double jobs and still barely covering basic needs.

We pretty much have to abolish the capitalist bedrock if we want to utilize this automation to the benefit of most, as there is no way the owners of production will take a profit cut simply to allow more people leisure time.

In my opinion, this is going to be the great challenge of the 21st century. You are going to switch from an economy where nearly everyone can potentially work where the challenge is keeping consumption high enough to keep them employed, to a world where the number of people who simply can't work is going to skyrocket.

You will have this strange no man's land where all of the manual jobs and service jobs have been automated away, and the only thing left are a handful of high level technical jobs and people who own the capital (and thus profits). You can't make everyone on the planet a scientist or engineer. You REALLY want those guys to keep working up until the end to push the technology to the point of self sustaining. Everyone else though? There is nothing to do and enough resources to not do it. Those folks should be enjoying their lives, making art, hiking, playing board games or whatever it is humans end up doing when work is meaningless.

So, the question is, how do you manage huge populations suddenly no longer needing to work? You might say you just split the resources, live in a real socialist paradise, and call it a day, but if their lives of leisure are too awesome compared to the poor bastards still working, the working folks will stop working and join the socialist utopia. I know I sure as shit would join the party without a seconds thought of remorse.

You can say "just get rid of capitalism", which is certainly the right answer once resources are no longer connected to work, but what about that entire transitional period? How do you manage 70% unemployment? Start switching too soon, and working people peace out to enjoy a low work, low scarcity existence, potentially collapsing the system as the people that need to work stop. Fail to switch, and at some point the world is owned by a handful of people who employee no one, produce everything, and have infinite resources surrounded by unending masses of poor.

We are already seeing the first part of this transition. Manual labor is phasing out. Service jobs are secure for the time being, but they too are starting to dry up. The worth of non-skilled work is being pushed into the dirt such that only people who need extremely few resources can be paid. Even places like China are starting to see the bottom fall out of manufacturing, even as we continue to make more and more stuff.

"The system is smart enough for what the makers call an "aggressive no-flyover approach," meaning that it can come in and land without having to fly around and survey the area first. This may be important in a battlefield situation where the delivery site is in the line of fire; it is also more efficient and creates less risk of air traffic congestion."

I'm not so sure "no-flyover" is described properly here. It isn't a matter of not flying around the landing site but rather coming down more vertical than horizontal. The assumption is the landing zone is safe else you wouldn't be landing there, but the surrounding area could have small arms fire. With fixed wing aircraft, this is very evident since the plane "cork screws" onto the ground. Contrast this with your typical passenger jet landing at a 3% slope. With a helicopter, I guess it flies sufficiently high to avoid small arms fire then just elevators down.

The photo doesn't show it well but the KMAX has no tail rotor for safety reasons. The KMAX uses two rotor spinning in opposite directions to get around needing a tail rotor. Hopefully the helicopter pilot in the thread can elaborate on it.

Problem is that in various parts of the world, people are working double jobs and still barely covering basic needs.

We pretty much have to abolish the capitalist bedrock if we want to utilize this automation to the benefit of most, as there is no way the owners of production will take a profit cut simply to allow more people leisure time.

Until you can figure out how to make a human that isn't self-serving then you're going to be hard pressed abolishing the capitalist bedrock.

Hell I think it can be argued that most if not all communist/marxist systems past and present were put in place by people just as self-serving as the capitalists they despised. The peasants suffered while the elite enriched themselves.

Problem is that in various parts of the world, people are working double jobs and still barely covering basic needs.

We pretty much have to abolish the capitalist bedrock if we want to utilize this automation to the benefit of most, as there is no way the owners of production will take a profit cut simply to allow more people leisure time.

Until you can figure out how to make a human that isn't self-serving then you're going to be hard pressed abolishing the capitalist bedrock.

Hell I think it can be argued that most if not all communist/marxist systems past and present were put in place by people just as self-serving as the capitalists they despised. The peasants suffered while the elite enriched themselves.

I don't want drones doing delivery, I want people to do the work, who get the benefit of having a job and getting paid. I don't people to be replaced by machines....

Like all the stable hands who were put out of a job when we stopped using horses.

Fake work isn't a solution, especially when you're in a competitive situation.

Or like the factory workers put out of a job by robots.

Fake work may be becoming a neccessity. The number of people required to produce all the goods an services consumed by society is decreasing... meaning less overall jobs. Since their pay is not rising with their efficieny, there's no obvious way to increase consumption to the same degree, and so unemployment should continue to rise.

It's an issue bothering many economists looking towards future trends. It's the same issue some countries (notably France) have long since had to act on.

Linux, Firefox, Apache, gcc, emacs, BSD, Raspberry PI, thousands more open source projects I don't feel like listing. There are plenty of bakers would would continue to get up without pay, and would probably contribute even more if they didn't have to worry about clothing and feeding themselves and family.

Quote:

Fake work may be becoming a neccessity. The number of people required to produce all the goods an services consumed by society is decreasing... meaning less overall jobs. Since their pay is not rising with their efficieny, there's no obvious way to increase consumption to the same degree, and so unemployment should continue to rise.

The jobs automated right now are the "untrained" variant, or even the entrance jobs to larger organization. I recently read about a system that could do the job of multiple paralegals. feed it all the paperwork on a case, hammer in some search terms, and it would spit out relevant documents. Even ones not holding the exact word or phrase, but ones with relevant contexts.

On the other hand if legal services get cheaper that makes it harder for rich people and corporations to steamroll everyone in court. Which sounds great!

I'd like to note that for at least a hundred and fifty years people have lived with the fear that all the jobs will be automated away, but this hasn't happened yet. If it does happen this time, that means everyone's needs can be met without full 40-hour a week employment. Which sounds great!

Yes it does. If we all go to 20 hour work weeks for the same effective pay, our lives will massively improve.

On the other hand if, especially in light of falling buying power for the vast bulk of Americans, we tried to keep working 40 hours (perhaps by seeking two jobs... or perhaps forced by companies that see the opportunity to save mony by not hiring twice as many peopel); then instead of a fully employed workfroce working 20 hours per week, you'll have 50% unemployment and the other hald still slaving away.

and yes, I can name a dozen countries this is currently the case (though not neccessairily because of automation)

Quote:

After all what was the longest lasting achievement of the early 20th century unions? The 40 hour work week. Maybe it's time for 35 or 32.

Fake work may be becoming a neccessity. The number of people required to produce all the goods an services consumed by society is decreasing... meaning less overall jobs. Since their pay is not rising with their efficieny, there's no obvious way to increase consumption to the same degree, and so unemployment should continue to rise.

It's an issue bothering many economists looking towards future trends. It's the same issue some countries (notably France) have long since had to act on.

We've already got huge amounts of fake work, much of it enormously well paid. Think of the whole advertising/marketing industry: sure, some of it is about getting actual information to (potential) consumers, but most of it is about saturating the airwaves/shelves/intertubes with promotion of your brand because otherwise people will only see and hear promotions of competing brands. It's a spiralling arms race, with most of the resources effectively wasted. Or think of banking/finance, which is ostensibly about efficient allocation of capital and management of risk, but has morphed into a worldwide agglomeration of vampire squids trading mostly imaginary assets. Fake work doesn't mean people not devoting a lot of effort, it just means work that doesn't really need to be done.

Fake work may be becoming a neccessity. The number of people required to produce all the goods an services consumed by society is decreasing... meaning less overall jobs. Since their pay is not rising with their efficieny, there's no obvious way to increase consumption to the same degree, and so unemployment should continue to rise.

It's an issue bothering many economists looking towards future trends. It's the same issue some countries (notably France) have long since had to act on.

We've already got huge amounts of fake work, much of it enormously well paid. Think of the whole advertising/marketing industry: sure, some of it is about getting actual information to (potential) consumers, but most of it is about saturating the airwaves/shelves/intertubes with promotion of your brand because otherwise people will only see and hear promotions of competing brands. It's a spiralling arms race, with most of the resources effectively wasted. Or think of banking/finance, which is ostensibly about efficient allocation of capital and management of risk, but has morphed into a worldwide agglomeration of vampire squids trading mostly imaginary assets. Fake work doesn't mean people not devoting a lot of effort, it just means work that doesn't really need to be done.

What you see as fake work or "work that doesn't really need to be done" is quite clearly seen as crucial by businesses, because they throw millions of dollars at it. And most businesses are all about turning a profit.